Centauri
Centauri is a superhuman adventurer, and currently a member of Thunder Force. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION NAME: Centauri REAL NAME: Jaime Jones KNOWN ALIASES: None IDENTITY: Secret. Centauri's dual identity is unknown to the general public, but is known to the United States government and certain worldwide agencies. OCCUPATION: Adventurer, Soldier of the Centauri League. PLACE OF BIRTH: Victoria, Kansas, USA CITIZENSHIP: Centauri is a citizen of the United States with no criminal record. She has been declared legally deceased. Her legal status since returning to Earth is unclear. MARITAL STATUS: Single KNOWN RELATIVES: Unrevealed KNOWN ALLIES: Thunder Force, Centauri League GROUP AFFILIATION: Thunder Force Beta Team, Centauri League USUAL BASE OF OPERATIONS: (Current) The Hub, The Thunder Force's orbiting space station. (Former) Alpha Centauri star system. EXTENT OF EDUCATION: High School (incomplete), extensive training, combat and technical experience as a member of the Centauri League. HEIGHT: 5’5’’ WEIGHT: 120lbs EYES: Blue HAIR: Red POWERS Without her suit, Centauri possesses no intrinsic superhuman powers, however the suit is bonded to her on an as yet unrevealed level. She can cause the suit to appear around her body at will. The Centauri Battleskin is a sophisticated machine which grants her a range of superhuman abilities. Centauri possesses the strength of a woman of her age, height and build who engages in intensive regular exercise. When she is wearing the Centauri Battleskin, she possesses vast superhuman strength, enabling her to lift/press approximately 50 tons under optimal conditions. The Battleskin grants her the power to fly. Centauri is capable of interstellar flight, and her top speed is incalculable – as she can enter hyperspace and travel in a realm where the speed of light is not a limiting factor on velocity. Travelling faster than her reaction time is only possible because of the artificial intelligence in her suit, which calculates her course and speed. In Earth’s atmosphere, Centauri rarely exceeds Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound, the speed of sound being 770 mph) Secondly, the Battleskin projects a defensive forcefield which protects her from injury. The forcefield also protects Centauri from hostile environmental conditions: she can withstand the great extremes of temperatures caused by the build up of friction within atmospheres or the vacuum of space, or (within limits) the intense heat within the near vicinity of stars. She can withstand without difficulty in the vacuum of space and hyperspace, and can withstand the stresses of travel at near light speeds in this universe and the greater stresses of travel in hyperspace. The suit generates its own oxygen supply and the forcefield contains it, enabling her to travel in space without wearing a helmet. Thirdly, Centauri can expel busts of energy from her hands. These bursts can be refined to have concussive force or to burn/penetrate, and the level of impact can be varied. The suit contains a sophisticated artificial intelligence which is integrated into Centauri’s own mind while she is wearing it (and possibly when she isn’t too). The intelligence monitors her life signs and the various functions of the Battleskin, diverting power to wherever it is needed. The suit has vast reserves of power, but this energy is not limitless, and prolonged exertion drains the power temporarily. The intelligence has sophisticated scanning and analytical capacity, feeding data directly into Centauri’s mind. It also operates as a communications device. The intelligence can translate all Earth languages and many alien languages and dialects, which Centauri will hear as English. It can also translate her speech into the language of the species or race she is communicating with, so that they will perceive her to be speaking their language fluently. Finally the Battleskin is capable of self-repair. It has not been revealed how much of the Battleskin would need to be destroyed before the suit were to be rendered inoperative. HISTORY Joining the Centauri League Jaime Jones, a high school student from Ellis County Kansas, was the subject of one of the most infamous missing persons cases of the early 1970s. A state and then nationwide search detected no sign of her and she was ultimately declared dead. In fact, she had been abducted by alien slave traders, who took her back to their headquarters in the Centaurus Constellation. What happened to Jones during this time has yet to be revealed, but ultimately she found herself in the hands of the Centauri League, a group of interplanetary law enforcement officers. Seeing potential in her, Jones was tested and became the only human to join the Centauri League. Jones served as an agent of the League (Agents are all referred to as ‘Centauri’) for many years, her aging retarded by the technology of her suit. While the details of the missions she took part in have yet to be revealed, her survival indicates that she was an effective and skilled operative. At some point – possibly in order to help her deal with the traumatic events she had experienced – her memories of her life as Jaime Jones were suppressed. Return to Earth Ultimately, Centauri became aware that her home planet was in danger, when the effects of the dimensional rifts caused by the Omega Event were felt in the Alpha Centauri system. She petitioned the leadership of the League to allow her to return to Earth. The return to Earth was a traumatic one and she impacted on the planet’s surface like a meteor, and was immediately hospitalised. The American authorities quickly identified her as Jaime Jones, noting with amazement that she had not aged since her departure over thirty years before. Reports of Jones’ mysterious return were kept from the media, but reports in official circles soon reached the government agencies who were seeking to rebuild Thunder Force in the wake of the Omega Event. Agent 42X personally went to investigate and brought Centauri back to Thunder Force HQ to try out for a place on one of the teams. Centauri successfully completed the tests, demolishing the training facility in an unintentional but impressive demonstration of power. She was assigned to the Thunder Force Beta Team and based on the Hub Space Station. Capturing Titus While on monitor duty in the Hub, Centauri and Ghost (another new Thunder Force recruit) were alerted to the presence of a super strong criminal, Titus. Working together they were able to defeat Titus, although Centauri broke her arm from the force of an impact which rendered Titus unconscious. During the battle Centauri was alarmed by the level of what she considered excessive force employed by Ghost when he weakened Titus by teleporting a considerable amount of blood from his body! She hesitated about whether to inform her superiors about her concerns. The Dragon's Tower Shortly after the encounter with Titus, Centauri investigated the island home of the dragon, The Syndicate who had constructed a device which prevented all forms of communication on Earth. Close proximity to the device caused disorientation and panic, and Centauri became involved in a confused melee with a number of other superhumans who had also arrived on the scene. She was instrumental in the destruction of the device, and it's effects were cancelled out. During what became known as the Babel Event, Centauri was prevented from communicating her concerns about Ghost's use of excessive force in her report to Agent 42X, as he was incapable of understanding her. Mission to the Moon Centauri was dispatched with the alien Marcella to investigate a distress call on the moon. The two women discovered that an old Thunder Force foe, Psi Void had returned. Marcella was captured and Centauri was severely injured. She managed to escape and returned to Earth to warn her teammates, but was hospitalized and unable to join the rescue mission. Assault on A.R.E.S On her recovery, Centauri rejoined the Thunder Force Beta Team in their attack on an island headquarters of A.R.E.S, a group of international terrorists. A.R.E.S' leader, Veladius Redd, had captured Christina Rogers and a device called the Vigilante Helmet, which granted him vast psychic powers. The device had been part of a larger machine which Rogers had used to harness the time travelling superheroine Vigil, and force her to use her abilities against her will to track and monitor superhumans for R.A.P.T.O.R. When the machine was used at full power, Vigil was apparently killed but a portion of her power remained in the helmet. Redd had used this power to influence the mind of the President of the United States. Centauri's team infiltrated the island to rescue Rogers, but were detected and ambushed. The heroes fought the leaders of A.R.E.S - Director Lloyd and Veladius Redd. While Lloyd escaped the Beta Team were able to remove the Vigilante Helmet from Redd. The villain was captured and the Vigilante Helmet was destroyed by Oblivion, who hurled it into the sun. Centauri returned to the Hub space station with the rest of Thunder Force, to learn that their efforts had restored the good reputation of super powered heroes with the general public. When the three Thunder Force teams were subsequently streamlined into one core group, Centauri was selected to remain on the new team.